Buddhism in the Land of Visnu: An Unique Case of Gaya Tirtha

Lying in the western bank of the Phalgu river, the holy tract of Gaya in South Bihar attract thousands of pilgrims over the years. Gaya is popularly known as a Vais?n?avite Tirtha as detailed in the Puranic corpus mainly. But Gaya inherits an underlying tradition of Buddhism embedded in its religious sphere. Several literary and archaeological sources indicate this religious acculturation inherent within various nuanced references. This paper intends to search those nuances and briefly discuss about them hereby presenting a synthetic religious picture of the Gaya Tirtha.